Ever wondered what it might be like to climb to the top of the Empire State Building, Summit Mount Everest or admire the view from the highest point of the Burj Khalifa?
Virtual Resource decided to take up the challenge and achieve just that by engaging in a virtual stair challenge put together to get employees off their chairs and onto the stairs.
A set of 10 statues and 15 mountains were identified and their individual heights (from base to summit) converted into a number of stairs that would need to be climbed in order to reach the top of each one.
The challenge was run over 5 weeks with employees needing to complete a certain number of stairs/steps each day in order to summit the statue or mountain presented on that day. The number of stairs/steps started small (220) and increased gradually to 3000, the number of stairs to reach the top of the famous, Burj Khalifa in Dubai.
To make matters more interesting, all 132 employees at Virtual Resource were placed into teams of four and encouraged to work together for 15 days as they attempted to summit the 15 virtual mountain peaks. Starting with Mount Snowden (4610 stairs) and ending with Mount Everest (58070 stairs), team members shared out the total stairs required for the day and set to work completing them. Each team had a self-created name and was fuelled by the notion that working together, whether in business or life, leads to better results in the long run.
Motivational messages were shared between team members, inspirational quotes placed on team groups to encourage movement, and action photographs of employees placed on our social WhatsApp group to challenge each other to keep going.
Prizes were offered along the way, additional challenges posted for those who wanted to go a little bit further and fun activities such as quizzes introduced as the fitness program evolved.
The stats at the end of the competition were quite unbelievable:
Stairs climbed
km walked
calories burned
All in all, a fabulous time was had by all who competed and the impact of taking time to move each day had far reaching effects on our employees’ fitness, happiness, flexibility and overall health.
We look forward to the next exciting fitness challenge and, until then, will continue to move as we embrace the mantra that a healthy body leads to a healthy mind which sets the wheels in motion for a happy life.
